Economist Debates adapt the Oxford style of debating to an online forum. The format was made famous by the 186-year-old Oxford Union and has been practised by heads of state, prominent intellectuals and galvanising figures from across the cultural spectrum. It revolves around an assertion that is defended on one side (the "proposer") and assailed on another (the "opposition") in a contest hosted and overseen by a moderator. Each side has three chances to persuade readers: opening, rebuttal and closing.

In Economist Debates, proposer and opposition each consist of a single speaker, experts in the issue at hand. We also invite featured guests to comment on the debate, not to take sides, but to provide context and informed perspective on the subject.

Those attending an Oxford-style debate participate in two ways: by voting to determine the debate's winner and by addressing comments to the moderator. The same holds here. As a reader, you are encouraged to vote. As long as the debate is open, you may change your vote as many times as you change your mind. And you are encouraged to air your own views by sending comments to the moderator. These should be relevant to the motion, the speakers' statements or the observations of featured guests. And they must be addressed directly to the moderator, who will single out the most compelling for discussion by the speakers.

Opening statements

Bjorn Lomborg is an adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School and director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, ranked by the University of Pennsylvania as one of the world's top 25 environmental think-tanks. He is the author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It" and his latest book, "How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?", will be published by Cambridge University Press in October. He is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media for outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, CNN, FOX and the BBC. His monthly column appears in 40 newspapers in 19 languages and has more than 30m readers. Both Time and Esquire magazines have named him one of the most influential people in the world and Guardian called him one of the 50 people who could save the planet. He has repeatedly been named one of Foreign Policy's top 100 global thinkers.

Adjunct professor, Copenhagen Business School and Director, Copenhagen Consensus Center

There is a strong correlation between income and willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation. Likewise, richer countries are more likely to have larger protected areas, stricter regulation and stronger enforcement.

Jonathan Baillie is responsible for conservation projects involving threatened species and habitats in over 50 countries around the world. His research focuses on defining the status and trends of the world's species and ecosystems. He has been the lead editor on a number of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red Lists and of "Evolution Lost: Status of the World's Vertebrates", and has played a key role in developing major biodiversity indicators such as the WWF Living Planet Index, the IUCN Red List Index and the Wildlife Picture Index. In 2007 he founded the EDGE of Existence Programme with a team at the Zoological Society of London. He also helped lead an experiment called Project Ocean, in partnership with Selfridges, to make sustainably sourced fish fashionable. He is a scientific adviser to Globe International and an adviser to Synchronicity Earth.

Conservation Programmes Director, Zoological Society of London

As a country's GDP increases, so does its overall ecological footprint—its consumption of food, water, materials and energy—and increased consumption is driving the current biodiversity crisis.

Emma Duncan is the Deputy Editor of The Economist. She has been the magazine's chief reporter on climate change and has also held several other posts on the paper, including Britain Editor and Asia Editor. She has covered the media business, the Middle East, home affairs, agriculture, commodities and the transport industry and has served as Delhi correspondent, covering India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. She has written special reports for the paper on Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, India, Pakistan, the food industry and climate change.

Ms Duncan appears regularly on television and radio programmes. She has written widely on a freelance basis, for publications such as the Times, the Sunday Times, the Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph and Vogue.

In 1988-89, she wrote "Breaking the Curfew" (Michael Joseph), a book on politics, culture and society in the troubled state of Pakistan.

She has an honours degree in politics, philosophy and economics from Oxford University and started her career as a researcher and reporter at Independent Television News.

Ms Duncan has three children and lives in London.

There have been five great extinctions in the history of the world. One wiped out the dinosaurs; another killed off 96% of species on the planet. Many scientists think that a sixth great extinction may be under way—this one caused by man.

Our knowledge of how other species are doing is a bit sketchy because our knowledge of the biosphere is a bit sketchy. We do not even know how many species there are on the earth. Guesses have ranged up to 100m, though the figures are coming down. The latest widely accepted guess is 8.7m. But there is little doubt that many species are in trouble: 4,224 are listed as critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. And it is pretty clear that mankind is responsible for most of their problems. Some, such as the rhino, have been hunted to the verge of extinction. Others, such as the Chinese pink dolphin, which lives in the waters off Hong Kong, are threatened by pollution. Others still, like the orang-utan, are endangered principally by habitat loss. Invasive species—cats and rats in particular—have done for numerous creatures endemic to islands.

Extinction is nothing unusual. After all, 99% of species that have ever existed have gone extinct. The question is simply how fast it is happening. Stuart Pimm, a scientist at Duke University, studied the extinctions on Pacific islands, where colonisers wiped out up to 90% of species, and reckons that extinctions have been running at around 100 times the background rate—the rate they would have been happening at in the absence of man. If that figure is right, and if extinctions continue at that rate, then a sixth great extinction is probably under way.

That economic growth has contributed to the diminution of biodiversity in the past is pretty clear, because it allowed humans to spread around the planet, to multiply until there were 7 billion of them, and to eat, poison and crowd out other species. The more contentious question is whether more growth would be good or bad for biodiversity in the future. Does prosperity, by allowing human beings the luxury of caring about matters beyond their immediate needs, benefit other species? Do richer governments have the capacity to conserve that poor ones lack? Or do rich countries merely export the damage they do to poorer countries? And if the rest of the world consumes resources at the rate America and western Europe do now, will we not condemn even more species to extinction?

The answer is of more than academic interest. If economic growth is bad for other species, their future—since economic growth is unlikely to stop—is bleak. But if its impact is positive, the outlook for biodiversity is a healthy one. We have two exceedingly well-informed debaters to argue through this fascinating but difficult topic: Bjorn Lomborg, the sceptical environmentalist, famous for pouring cold water on global warming predictions, and Jonathan Baillie, conservation programmes director at the Zoological Society of London, which has been at the centre of conservation work around the world for nearly two centuries.

Bjorn Lomborg is an adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School and director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, ranked by the University of Pennsylvania as one of the world's top 25 environmental think-tanks. He is the author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It" and his latest book, "How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?", will be published by Cambridge University Press in October. He is a frequent commentator in print and broadcast media for outlets including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, CNN, FOX and the BBC. His monthly column appears in 40 newspapers in 19 languages and has more than 30m readers. Both Time and Esquire magazines have named him one of the most influential people in the world and Guardian called him one of the 50 people who could save the planet. He has repeatedly been named one of Foreign Policy's top 100 global thinkers.

The question here is whether growth is good for biodiversity. Our intuition probably shouts a resounding "no". Surely, more people, more production, more resource use—in short, more economic growth—mean less biodiversity?

Yet our intuition may lead us astray.

First, our intuition of "more growth-less biodiversity" is led by the counterfactual that few people with few demands would have little impact on the planet and its biodiversity. In the extreme, no people would clearly mean an absolutely intact biodiversity.

But the real counterfactual to growth is not few people with few demands, but rather more and more people with ever more environmentally unconcerned demands. Without growth, large parts of the world will remain poor for a long time (more than 3 billion people, or almost half the world's population, live on less than $2.50 a day1). Population increases are strongly correlated to poverty2—the total fertility rate of a nation decreases the richer it gets. In most rich countries, like most European countries, Japan and South Korea, we see fertility rates below the replacement level of two children per woman, while many of the world's poorest populations still increase rapidly. And a larger population will, all other things equal, strongly compete with biodiversity for space. With an indefinite growth stop, population increases really could continue until real, Malthusian limits set in, running way past the 10 billion population mark. (The UN runs scenarios on constant, current-date fertility with humanity passing 28 billion before 2100.3)

Compare this with our current, growth-oriented world, where there is a good chance we will see global population max out around 9 billion at mid-century, after which we might see a gentle decline.

Moreover, a poorer population will also be able to afford fewer inputs to agriculture (like irrigation infrastructure, pest control, fertiliser and new, higher-yielding varieties), leading to lower yields. This means each person will require a larger area set aside for agriculture, which again will reduce the space for biodiversity.

Many more poor people, each with higher agricultural demands, will lead to even greater pressures on biodiversity.

The first point here is not necessarily that growth is good for biodiversity, but that no growth in the long term is much, much worse for biodiversity. Moreover, this no-growth has to be enforced forever. If long-term no-growth were to be followed at any time by growth, bringing poverty and population growth to an end, it would simply lead to the same problems that growth has now—only multiplied by a significantly higher population.

This argument alone should counter our intuition: while growth might not be good for biodiversity, it is certainly better than the alternative of no-growth.

But there are many ways in which growth is good for biodiversity. Perhaps the most obvious is that poorer countries deforest, whereas richer countries afforest.4 Again, this fits the logic that poor countries will see forests and biodiversity mainly as an underutilised resource, whereas richer countries can afford to leave them intact.

For example, a poor farmer will engage in practices like slash-and-burn farming of a rainforest to feed his children. Even if he knows this is unsustainable, he will cultivate a field with this method for a few years before moving on to another. In a richer country, a sustenance farmer would instead move to a city, pursue his livelihood there, and probably come to support stricter environmental regulations.

More generally, there is a strong correlation between income and willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation.5 Likewise, richer countries are more likely to have larger protected areas, stricter regulation and stronger enforcement.6

My point is that not only is the alternative of no-growth much worse for biodiversity, but there are a number of good arguments for growth to be outright good for biodiversity and many other world problems.

Jonathan Baillie is responsible for conservation projects involving threatened species and habitats in over 50 countries around the world. His research focuses on defining the status and trends of the world's species and ecosystems. He has been the lead editor on a number of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red Lists and of "Evolution Lost: Status of the World's Vertebrates", and has played a key role in developing major biodiversity indicators such as the WWF Living Planet Index, the IUCN Red List Index and the Wildlife Picture Index. In 2007 he founded the EDGE of Existence Programme with a team at the Zoological Society of London. He also helped lead an experiment called Project Ocean, in partnership with Selfridges, to make sustainably sourced fish fashionable. He is a scientific adviser to Globe International and an adviser to Synchronicity Earth.

It is critical to define what we mean by growth. Is growth gross domestic product (GDP), the "monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders"? Or does it mean improving the human standard of living? Today, when the motion says growth, it means GDP, a measure that is over 70 years old. Is this measure outdated when it comes to biodiversity and our modern condition? Yes. GDP masquerading as growth has negative implications for biodiversity, as this "growth" only calculates output; or as Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Laureate, said: "GDP measures only revenues to see how well a firm is doing; far more relevant is the balance sheet, which shows assets and liabilities." As biodiversity delivers no revenues, it is ignored in economic statistics, but biodiversity provides the bulk of the asset side of the balance sheet, such as forests, rivers, wetlands and coral reefs—the list goes on.

It is argued that growth is good for biodiversity—that there is an environmental Kuznets curve where environmental conditions get worse in the early phases of modern economic growth, but improve once a growth threshold has been met. It is argued that this is because increases in per-head GDP are often correlated with more resources to invest in conservation, declines in population, stronger environmental agencies and new technologies. It is argued that this process can be seen in America where there was heavy deforestation in the early stages of development and little regulation of pollutants such sewage, lead and sulphur dioxide. As the nation experienced growth, there was more interest in protecting the environment, and some of the forests started to return and many pollutants were almost eliminated. Standing in America today it might appear that the environmental Kuznets curve works. But there is one uncomfortable fact. As a country's GDP increases, so does its overall ecological footprint—its consumption of food, water, materials and energy—and increased consumption is driving the current biodiversity crisis.

At first sight there appears to be a mismatch. If GDP is increasing and is supposedly bad for biodiversity, why in America are many vertebrate species populations recovering, many forests coming back and many pollutants on the decline? Some of America's environmental conditions can be explained by innovation leading to greater efficiency, such as fuel efficiency in cars or more efficient agricultural production. But the majority of the negative impact has simply been exported. The industries that produce the most pollutants have been outsourced to emerging nations that have fewer regulations, in terms of both the environment and labour conditions. Therefore the environmental impact of increased consumption is largely felt beyond the borders of wealthy nations—it is middle- and lower-income nations that experience the majority of environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. This can be seen in the WWF Living Planet Report 2012, where species population trends are increasing by 7% in high-income countries and declining in middle- and low-income countries by 31% and 60% respectively.

It is self-evident that growth, as currently defined, has a major negative impact upon biodiversity. What needs to change is the definition of growth from a GDP-centric mindset to a balance-sheet approach. Organisations and institutions such as the UN, World Bank, OECD, TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) and GLOBE International are working on creating measurement criteria that will help ensure that future growth captures the delicate reliance between an improving standard of living and a thriving biodiverse landscape.

Comments from the floor

This is a case where both commentators have good points, and both are full of it.

Yes, increasing consumption of energy and resources that accompany growth can be bad for diversity, and slash and burn and using large areas to produce what can be produced in small areas is bad for diversity. Neither is necessary to subsistence or high tech society.

Pre-industrial Europe was not slash and burn. High tech does not mean high waste. Much more efficient use of resources is possible, and can help prevent loss of diversity. Even current levels of consumption can be mitigated by more efficient and cleaner extraction and processing of resources.

When I read that Mr Lomborg is a noted global warming skeptic, I was prepared to read a commentary from someone lacking real world understanding of the facts. I was not disappointed.

Mr. Baillie, on the other hand, seems to have found the answer, then sought the facts to back it up.

I find the reasoning of both men unconvincing, but fortunately I am not dependent on either of them for all my exposure to the issue. Mr. Lomborg may get negative credibility in my view as a global warming skeptic, but, in this case, I agree, we can have growth and a good environment.

I disagree with Dr. Lomborg on many counts. I have been working on environment and development around the world in developing countries and countries undergoing or emerging from conflict for 35 years now and his observations and theories simply do not conform to the reality I have experienced. I looked up his public bio and note that he has excellent academic credentials but from what I can see he has not actually worked on the front lines with local citizens where their reality of every day collides with grand theory. I strongly believe that there is a role for contrarians like Dr. Lomborg in every debate and through such discussion optimal ways forward can be found. Yet, I find it disturbing when a respected journal such as the Economist decides to elevate contrarianism, especially the kind that is unsupported by on the ground reality, as an equally valid framework against the framework painstakingly built by the overwhelming majority of equally well academically trained experts who have spent many years actually doing the work in these countries. This is dangerous because economic and social development must take into account all of the costs, including the difficult to quantify but real environmental ones. Providing reasons not to do so undermines the ability of development organizations to continue receiving funding to support overall development. And this leads to a the ongoing neo-colonial relationship that still exists with poorer countries who clutch such contrarian views to justify short-term economic and political gains for the few with statements that since the US destroyed most of its environment to get rich and once they all live like Americans and Europeans they can spend a small amount of money and fully restore their environment. That is tragic thinking.

Enjoying nature is seen in most of the world as a luxury good. The poorer a population, the more fiercely it will defend their "right" to develop a green area instead of preserving it. Its once the main needs are satisfied that people develop the need to preserve their natural parks and spaces. This is why economic growth, and not poverty, is in the long run the best bet for the environment.

Sorry for the mangled English in the previous version it was written in haste and with some anger. Hopefully this version is more readable.

The paucity of Lomborg’s arguments are astounding. I have neither the time, nor the patience to deal with the many faults within Lomborg’s arguments, so I shall highlight just three and then suggest one result if you follow Lomborg’s logic through (which I guess he has not done yet himself).

Firstly, Lomborg disingenuously states that “Perhaps the most obvious is that poorer countries deforest, whereas richer countries afforest” this is typical of the kind of statement Lomborg makes, true, but utterly meaningless, if not downright misleading. The deforestation happens in poorer countries, but that does not mean it is driven only by poverty, it is also driven by demand created by economic growth (timber for paper coffee cups, agricultural land for beef production). To fail to mention this is frankly appalling. As is the fact that many wealthy countries have little forest left to deforest (they were cut down during previous periods of economic expansion).

Secondly, Lomborg states “More generally, there is a strong correlation between income and willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation” without admitting that willingness to pay is not the same as actually paying (or even the effectiveness of paying for conservation). Nor does Lomborg discuss whether that conservation spending in high income countries outweighs the loss of biodiversity that come from increased resource consumption in those countries. Without such an analysis the statement really is meaningless in shedding light on whether or not economic growth is good or bad for biodiversity.

Thirdly, Lomborg states that without economic growth there will be ever increasing population growth, due to the poor having more children. This argument completely fails to acknowledge that you can increase the income of the poor through redistribution and that economic growth does not necessarily decrease poverty.

Lomborg admits that economic growth might not be good for biodiversity, but suggests that population growth, due to poverty, is a worse problem. According to the figure Lomborg cites (2) population stabilizes at a per capita income of $10,000, which is close to the current global average income. By his own logic Lomborg should be calling for no economic growth and radical global redistribution of income. Of course such a call would be overly simplistic, but Lomborg does not seem averse to making simplistic arguments.

The paucity of Lomborg’s arguments are astounding. I have neither the time, nor the patience to deal with the many faults within Lomborg’s arguments, so I shall highlight just three and then suggest one result if you follow Lomborg’s logic through (which I guess he has not done yet himself).

Firstly, Lomborg disingenuously states that “Perhaps the most obvious is that poorer countries deforest, whereas richer countries afforest” this is typical of the kind of statement Lomborg makes, true, but utterly meaningless, if not downright misleading. The deforestation happens in poorer countries, but that does not mean it is driven only by poverty, it is also driven by demand created by economic growth (timber for paper coffee cups, agricultural land for beef production). To fail to mention this is frankly appalling. As is the fact that many wealthy countries have lift forest left deforest (they were cut down during previous periods of economic expansion).

Secondly, Lomborg states “More generally, there is a strong correlation between income and willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation” without noting that willingness to pay is not the same as paying,nor discussing whether that willingness to pay outweighs the additional loss of biodiversity that come from increased incomes. Without such an analysis the statement really is meaningless in understanding whether or not economic growth is good or bad for biodiversity.

Thirdly, Lomborg that without economic growth there will be ever increasing population growth, is completely fails to acknowledge that you can increase income through redistribution.

This is interesting because in Lomborg admits that economic growth might not be good for biodiversity but that less poverty is need to stabilize the population. Following Lomburg’s own logic the best solution would appear to be no growth and wealth redistribution. According to the figure Lomborg cites (2) population stabilizes at a per capita income of $10,000, which is close to the current global average income. By his own logic Lomborg should be calling for no growth and radical global redistribution of income. Of course such a call would be overly simplistic, but Lomborg does not seem adverse to making simplistic arguments.

I disagree this statement. Urban development will curb the space for livings in our environment. Someone may debate that current knowledge can solve this problems via combination architecture with friendly environment nearby; however, the current space eliminating by artificial intervention is the totally truth.

Food chains connect live in the environment. Under the circumstance that species supply chain has been eradicated by intervention. Seeking food also became a worrying problems along species. So that how come the growth can be in accompanied with prosperity of biodiversity?

Much research confirms the 'against' position, as well as the comment by Ashish Kothari, viz., that considering a broader global view, whatever environmental gains have been achieved locally by the wealthy depend utterly on sourcing that wealth from and transferring its true costs to distant 'elsewheres' (e.g. Rees 1992; Martinez-Alier 1995; Jackson 2009). The full costs – including biodiversity destruction – of consumption by the wealthy cast long ‘shadows’ (Dauvergne 2008) and are distanced across the globe in space and time (Princen 2002). As environmental sociologists Andrew Jorgenson and Brett Clark (2011) have concluded in a panel study of the ecological footprints of nations, "we found no evidence of a relative decoupling of environmental harms and economic development, regardless of whether the panel analysis is (1) restricted to either developed countries or less-developed countries, or (2) for all countries in which appropriate data are currently available.…Given the Jevons Paradox, we should not assume that improvements in ecoefficiency equate to environmental sustainability when it corresponds with increases in the scale and intensification of production....Environmental space in less-developed countries is assimilated into the highly consumptive economies of the more-developed countries, which suppresses resource consumption opportunities for the populations of the former... These results are consistent with the contemporary theory of ecologically unequal exchange...."

Furthermore, a correlation between income and willingness to pay for biodiversity conservation is altogether different from – and inconsequential compared to – affluent lifestyles and economic systems that systematically weigh heavily on nature … elsewhere. Avoiding destruction is much more efficient, to say nothing of sensible and sustainable, than getting wealth from destruction in order to later be able to afford to be willing to pay for conservation (never mind whether this translates into actually so paying). The global distribution of its resource mines and waste sinks is also what enables the supposedly "larger protected areas" within the richer countries that Lomborg celebrates. Finally, the theory of wealth-as-prerequisite-to-environmental concern is rubbished by the myriad of peoples’ environmental movements in 'poor/developing' countries (e.g., Martinez-Alier 1995; Bello 2007; Desmarais 2007).

In our recent working paper (http://bit.ly/1eS8FOZ), we gave an overview of new evidence for the last decades on the Environmental Kuznets Hypothesis which is underpinning Mr. Lomborg's perspective.

We observed no signs of improvement in ecosystem vitality index between 2000-2010. We found a significant improvement of environmental health index. Alarmingly, the willingness to pay for an increase in environmental taxes declined significantly in most countries, with few exceptions.

It seem rich countries will only continue to fund environmental policies if the awareness among the public is raised that such policies need a solid tax base.

Dear Madam,
The growth in rich countries (or recently developing) has been good for THEIR biodiversity because at all their "dirty" industries have been cleverly pushed off their borders. In such countries the re-forestation processes occur, biodiversity grows. Now, they specialise in "services" (mostly "bullshit jobs" - http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/).
But how and where some "clean" "eco-friendly" products (like photovoltaic panels, wind turbines etc.) are produced? And how is the ecocogical imprint of such production?
It seems, the growth (as it is understood nowadays) is not good for biodiversity for the planet as a whole. It is good for countries and societies clever enough to benefit from "knowledge-based" economy.

The debate is quite an interesting one but the argument could have been more pro-biodiversity then favoring growth like, "Is biodiversity good for growth". Well absolutely their is a lot of scientific research available that points to the fact the biodiversity of people's livelihoods and well-being, mitigate against climate change and provide ecosystem systems that are irreplaceable if destroyed. Socio-economic benefits of biodiversity must be conversed and sustained through sustainable growth & development. Human economies would not disappear would night but unsustainable growth is responsible for many of the global challenges we face e.g poverty, climate change and ecological collapse. The argument here must focus on the significant importance of biodiversity on growth and the debate must find solution to what sort of growth do we the an unsustainable one or a shift towards a more sustainable growth that is focused towards biodiversity conservation, fair trade and low carbon ecological friendly green economy.

A quote from WWFs Living Planet Index:
If all of humanity lived like an average resident of Indonesia, only two-thirds of the planet’s
biocapacity would be used; if everyone lived like an average Argentinean, humanity would demand more than half an additional planet; and if everyone lived like an average resident of the USA, a total of four Earths would be required to regenerate humanity’s annual demand on nature.

"But there are many ways in which growth is good for biodiversity. Perhaps the most obvious is that poorer countries deforest, whereas richer countries afforest.4 Again, this fits the logic that poor countries will see forests and biodiversity mainly as an underutilised resource, whereas richer countries can afford to leave them intact."

It is important to mention that many of the developed countries already did their part in the destruction of the forests. For example: England during the First Industrial Revolution.
In that time, we were used to turn a blind eye to the Biodiversity degradation.

It is really unequal, when emerging countries pay the historic bill of the developed countries.

The UK has the best biodiversity data of any country in the World. This data was used by 25 wildlife groups to prepare the State of Nature report that was launched in June this year. It found that far more species are declining than increasing in the UK. Of the 3,148 species assessed, 60% have declined over the last 50 years, and 31% have strongly declined. Some taxa fair worse than others. Vertebrates for example faired relatively well with 40% declining and 60% increasing. However, this more positive picture is overshadowed by the dismal plight of the other taxonomic groups.
Global assessments are much more difficult due to lack of data. Jonathan Baillie has quoted from the WWF Living Planet Index, which is the best assessment available. It reports that species population in high income countries have increased by 7%, while species in low and middle income countries have declined. This appears to support the idea of an environmental Kuznets curve. However, this data is based solely on vertebrate populations. If data on other taxonomic groups were available globally, as it was the State of Nature report, a truer and no doubt gloomier picture would have been revealed.

I strongly defend the motion. As mentioned by environmental think-tank “Bjorn Lomborg” – “current growth is way better than no-growth scenario”. I don’t entirely say our rapid economic growth is good for bio-diversity, but hindering our growth not at all good for our human beings. The nature has its way- the survival of the fittest. We the so called high minds on this earth are fittest and thus expanding our boundaries and progressing. Although, as everyone can see, our progress exerting a malignant influence on our mother earth. My point is all we have to do now is to use our minds to stop this malignancy but not our growth.

Can this happen?? Yes indeed. Consider the example of Aeroponics- a novel idea to grow plants without soil. Population growing at an exponential rate and we are encroaching forests. If we really focus on this Aeroponics we can improve its efficiency and grow plants on all roof tops and even on slant walls. Don’t you call this as growth and don’t you think this is good for bio-diversity? Not only Aeroponics there are many such novel ideas- efficient solar systems, hydrogen power- where our growth and bio-diversity can go hand in hand. All we need to do is swerve our current path and focus upon on these ideas and bring them into existence in a wider way.
Knife is a very good example and I’ll always use in these type of debates. As we all know a knife is used in many good ways right from cutting vegetables to cutting and giving shape to large ship decks. At the same time, the same knife is used to cut throats and “kill” a person! But do we stop using knives? No. After learning the fact that knife is harming us, we started constructing a handle to it. We made safe pouches to keep the knife safe and then made laws to use the knife only in safer way.

Likewise when we came to know that our progress or growth is turning to be harmful to bio-diversity like a knife, we need to build pouches and stringent laws to safeguard our bio-diversity but not banning our growth.

Dear Madam,
I agree with Jonathon on one thing that definition of growth should be changed but otherwise i disagree with him. when a country grow economically, it has more resources and technology to reduce the human footprint and save the ecosystem. people in developed countries think more rationally about the environment they live in and its resilience because they understand that anything bad to environment going to haunt them in long term. Finally model of growth should be such that it satisfies the need and values of all interest groups while conserving and upgrading the life support system on planet earth.

Dear Madam,
As developing countries goes into the development road, their physical necessities change. The average meat consumption per person increases, the use of raw materials increases, the use of cars and electricity increases, as the IPAT identity perfectly explains. The impact is directly proportional to Population, Affluency and Technological Change, so, any variation in any of those three aspects will cause impact variation, usually for more impact.
As population is growing, and affluence too, we will surely see impacts growing. We will need more space to produce, and since we do not have another planet, impacts to biodiversity is the logical consequence.
Biodiversity does not have a value per se, so cannot be incorporated into cost-benefit analysis. Existence value will not be sufficient to protect biodiversity. Growth will kill biodiversity.

Dear Madam,
the main reason for a decline in fertility rate is not wealth as stated by Lomborg but education. Growing economies without an increase of the level of education of the people within it is the big threat to biodiversity.

Baillie correctly assesses that the key is the definition of "growth."

"Growth" measured by money is not the same thing as value. I would argue that money, per complexity increases, has become a dysfunctional culture app for measuring VALUE. There are simply too many relationships that money can't account for.

Hence we see a huge increase in externalities, complex network relationships outside of money's reach, like climate change, species extinction, etc. — with more on the way.

Evolutionary anthropologists call this mismatch: you behave in a certain way because in the past your ancestors gained a reproductive advantage by behaving that way. But due to environmental novelty, that way of behaving no longer works.

Monetary code has been a vital tech / app for cultural evolution. Now? It's in the way. Of what? Of Functional Relationships. (Much like the god app, btw.)

"The most fundamental phenomenon of the universe is relationship." Jonas Salk

Money is increasingly an insufficient culture app for the computation of, the measurement of relationship value information -- too slow, inaccurate, and weak of a technology / processor. Money is analogous to using an abacus, when we could be using algorithms and quantum computers to generate value numbers for relationships in and across geo, eco, bio and cultural networks.

"A technology can only be pressed so far before it runs into some limitation." The Nature of Technology by Brian Arthur

Money has reached its limits.

Both writers make valid points. But to varying degrees, the codes we use to interface with reality, to functionalize complex network relationships, namely our moral, religious, legal and monetary codes, are increasingly complexity inadequate.

Without a precise definition of growth, the philosophic orientation is unmoored, making the debate almost silly.

However, regarding money, as the robber used to say to Jack Benny in his comedic skit: “Your money or your life.” That’s where we’re at as a civilization.